| Oct 19, 2016


North Frontenac Official Plan

Planner Joe Gallivan appeared before North Frontenac Council last week in preparation for submitting a draft revised township Official Plan in November.

Gallivan is the Manager of Planning for Frontenac County and was the author of the Frontenac County Official Plan, which forms the backdrop for the township plan. He told council about a number of details he is planning to include in the plan when he submits it to the township next month.

One of them was a proposal to remove the “hamlet” designation for a number of former communities in the township that no longer exist.

“There are restrictions in hamlets that do not apply in a rural zone, and there is no reason for those restrictions in places such as Donaldson, Canonto or Wilbur,” he said.

The township currently has 13 hamlets designated in its Official Plan (Myers Cave, Harlowe, Plevna, Fernleigh, Ardoch, Coxvale, Ompah, Snow Road Station, Mississippi Station, Robertsville, Canonto, Donaldson, Wilbur, Cloyne)

The more contentious issue raised by Gallivan had to do with setting out minimum lot size and minimum frontages for new waterfront lots. Back in September, Reid Shepherd, appearing for Gallivan, talked to Council about whether minimum lot sizes and frontages should be included in Official Plans at all.

The opinion of Council at the time was that all of the detail should stay out of the Official Plan, which is more of a background document, and should be included only in the comprehensive zoning bylaw, which will be worked on as soon as the work is done on the Official Plan.

Gallivan said that “the plan should set a general standard then provide the tools to give the flexibility to realize that every waterfront lot is different.”

Gallivan's recommendation is that the Official Plan include a general minimum lot size of “2 acres (0.8 hectares) and include no absolute number for water frontage.”

He said that in addition to that wording he will include clear language on the issues that need to be considered when lots are being created on the water, such as setbacks, septic system placement, vegetative buffers, etc.

Mayor Higgins was sceptical.

“To me, that only needs to be in the zoning bylaw” he said.

“My opinion is that your lakes are so important that you need something on a policy level that sets out the over-riding direction in terms of development,” Gallivan said.

“By putting it in the Official Plan, we are putting the onus on the developer to change the Official Plan,” said Councilor Denis Bedard.

“The language will be clear and it will not require an Official Plan amendment to create a lot. You will see what I mean when I present the document in a couple of weeks,” said Gallivan.

“Do other townships have minimum lot sizes in their OPs?” asked Councilor John Inglis.

“Yes, they have hard numbers,” said Gallivan.

In fact, both Central and South Frontenac, along with a number of other townships, have a minimum lot size of 1 hectare and 300 feet of shoreline.

Gallivan said that his contention is that those numbers do not need to be included in North Frontenac's Official Plan as they are not called for in the Provincial Policy Statement, the root document for all planning matters in Ontario.

Gallivan said he would have the plan to the township in a few weeks, in time for it to be considered by Council on November 25 and presented to a public open house on the same day.

Final Approval of the plan is set for December 16, if all goes as planned. It will need to go to Frontenac County for final approval after that, a process that will not likely take more than one month.

Council says no to Solar Panel Micro FIT proposal

Abundant Solar has been going around the region from council meeting to council meeting on behalf of solar projects, ahead of an application window that opens at the end of October. Township councils have the opportunity to support projects within their jurisdiction, which will provide a boost to them. The projects are much smaller than those captured in the Large Renewable Procurement process, which included wind turbine projects and was so controversial in North Frontenac. They take up between 3 and 5 acres and are required to be blocked from view through vegetative plantings or berms and rarely cause much controversy among neighbours.

Still, North Frontenac Council, led by Mayor Higgins, raised questions of Tyson Champagne, who was representing Abundant Solar

“I think that we need to send a message to the provincial government about the Green Energy Act. It is no fault of yours,” Higgins said to the Abundant Solar rep, “but the entire system of producing power that is not required at above the market price needs to be questioned.”

“At least in the case of solar the price is clear, all the risk goes to the developer. In the case of nuclear power, which is 60% of the market, there are infrastructure costs above the price that are hidden to the consumer,” said Champagne.

Other members of Council asked more questions and expressed their opposition to provincial energy policy.

“I think, unlike others here, I am concerned about global warming,” said Councilor John Inglis. “I request a recorded vote on this.”

“I know about global warming,” said Councilor Wayne Good, “but that does not mean we should support the Green Energy Act.”

In a 6-1 vote, the township voted not to support the project.

Afterwards Champagne said it is unclear whether the vote will have an impact on the bid. “In the last go-around, half of the proposals were accepted and half were rejected. Some of those that were accepted were located in places that had not supported them. So it's hard to say what the deciding factor is, especially since the price paid for the power is the same in all cases under the Micro FIT process.”

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